Blue-Ribbon Beignet

I had been meaning to sew myself a denim Beignet for years, thinking it would be a great basic skirt that would go with everything. Yet I pushed that project over and over to the bottom of the pile, always finding a new garment that seemed more appealing to sew.

But lo and behold, Me-Made-May made me realise more concretely that my wardrobe was missing a few basics. Not that I don’t wear the less basic garments I sewed (or knitted), I almost always do, but they would be so much easier to mix and match with simpler ones.

This small piece of denim had been in my stash for years too, bought from the remnant bin of one of the local fabric stores. So no excuses not to sew that denim Beignet! Initially I was afraid the 0,80 meters I had wouldn’t be enough and I chose a contrast fabric for the facings, but in fact I had no problem getting all the pattern pieces on that very small piece, so no need for the contrast facing.

The lining is dark blue rayon bemberg, which I bought for the occasion. I try to use up my stash as much I possible, but there isn’t a lot of lining in it, so it is usually the only fabric I have to buy. About this lining, I must say I had the most difficult time sewing it without puckers and the like. Do any of you know how to avoid that? Should I loosen the tension a bit or something? Anyway, the inside hem of this lining was not very even-looking, so I sewed on a pretty blue ribbon I have tons of in my stash, hence the name. Well, that and the fact that I’m pretty pleased with my new skirt!

As far as modifications go, I topstitched all of the outside seams (except for the side seams because of the pockets) with a very strong thread like the one you would find on jeans. I also couldn’t turn inside out tiny belt loops made from this quite thick denim, so I folded and topstitched those, too. Oh, and I had to go from a size 0 waist (first time in my whole life I’ve been a size 0 anything, thanks Colette Patterns!) to size 4 hips.

I wouldn’t say the skirt was difficult to sew, but it wasn’t easy either: there were a lot of steps involved. But everything was explained very clearly in the booklet, so I didn’t encounter any major obstacle. Only the buttonholes made me really loose my temper: the machine I used had a hard time handling the thickness of the thread, so I had to redo some of them a couple of times (and some are still a little wonky). Oh, and I literally stabbed myself in the thumb with the embroidery scissors I used to slice them open, ouch!

After that, putting in the buttons felt very liberating: I used jeans buttons, so I had to hammer them in place and I LOVED doing that (though I broke three of them in the process, but fortunately I had a few spare ones)!

So, sewing this skirt was not a piece of cake, but the result is exactly what I had in mind (if you don’t look at the inside – or the buttonholes – from too close) and I already know I’ll be wearing it a lot in the future! Now off to find a thin brown leather belt!

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